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Monday, January 28, 2008

Obituary: Gordon B. Hinckley

Despite the claims of a few in the comboxes when Mormonism arises as a topic of discussion, Hinckley was a false teacher and will be treated accordingly by his Judge. Now would be a good time to remind your Mormon neighbors of the Gospel. No accolades of men, no meritorious works in addition to faith can save a man's soul. God is not an embodied, exhalted man. Men do not become gods. Christ is not Lucifer's "spirit brother." The Book of Mormon is a fabrication from beginning to end, along with the Doctrine and Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price. Mormons are not Christians.

Christ is God incarnate, not a mode of God's existence, but One of Three subsistences within the Godhead, who together form one God. There is no pantheon of gods. There is but one. His name is not Elohim to the exclusion of others. His covenant name is Yahweh. Christ died for the sins of His people. The way to know that one is one of those people is to put your faith in Christ and His sole and sufficient merit and repent of your sins and throw yourself on the mercy of God holding fast to Christ alone as your only High Priest. He will not turn away any who come to Him.

10 comments:

I suppose many will find this post offensive whether they are Mormon or not. Sadly, many so-called Evangelical Christians will likely find offense as well. It is a sad day and age we live in when those who profess to be disciples of Christ fear offending men rather than Christ who died as a propitiation and would much sooner embrace someone whom Paul would say is accursed than to be known as "narrow-minded".

Either our Mormon commenter is dissembling or else he is ignorant of his own religious tradition. The raison d'etre of Mormonism is that traditional Christendom is apostate. Joseph Smith restored the long lost gospel.

Why don't you brush up on your own religious history—assuming that you're Mormon. If not, then you don't have a dog in this fight.

The comments by Anonymous are fairly typical tactics that some groups are using to deflect criticism from themselves by demonizing their opponents, and more troubling, to destroy their First Amendment rights of free-speech. Originating in the rhetoric of the radical left (particularly the gay rights movement), these tactics have now been adopted by religious groups who apparently would rather attack the character of their critics rather than engage in open debate about ideas. An example in point is the document on "Hinduphobia" (WWW.HAFSITE.ORG/HATEREPORT/), published by the American Hindu Foundation, where we learn that simply stating that Hindu religious beliefs are false, or wrong, is an example of anti-Hindu hate! Supposedly, if such discourse is allowed in America, it will provoke acts of violence against Hindus, so the AHF encourages web-hosts to shut down sites critical of Hinduism. I have not heard of any cases of Christians committing acts of violence against Hindus in America, but incidents of Hindus beating (at times fatally) Christians, burning churches and otherwise persecuting Christians seems to a common occurrence in India (see http://www.assistnews.net/mysearch/pagedresults.asp?SearchText=Hindu%20AND%20extremists for just a sample).

This should not be a surprise as the hate-speech accusation is itself symptomatic of the radical intolerance of those who employ it. Thus, anonymous's comments can be seem both as irrational and hypocritical. They are irrational in their self-referencial incoherence. It is simply a contradiction to accuse one's opponents of "hate" simply because they assert that your position is wrong, while hiding behind the facade of "inclusiveness". In fact, the "inclusivist” position is itself an assertion concerning the state of ultimate reality, namely, that all religions are equally true. But of course, this is the same as asserting that the claims of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and any variety of other religions (including Mormonism) are false. So by his own criteria, anonymous, if he is an inclusivist, is quite guilty or perpetrating hate! This is completely irrational, or worse, just flat out dishonest.

Indeed, playing the hate speech card is profoundly intolerant in that it is an attempt to silence the opponent so that his or her viewpoint is not heard anymore. Like an illegal chop-block, it is an attempt to remove the opponent from the playing field so that one can press forward undisturbed, without the struggle of having to defend oneself in the arena of ideas. And in this intolerance, this blatant attack on the freedom of religion and expression, we can see clearly the deep hypocrisy of anonymous's position. Such discourse is an expression of hate of the worst sort in a free-society; hatred of the freedom of one's ideological opponents, expressed in the desire to deprive them of their basic civil rights. Fortunately, for the AHF and others of this ilk, those of us on the other side of this debate are quite willing, not only to tolerate their self-contradictory discourse, but to defend their right to speak so.

I don't see why everyone can say that a regular tactic of Mormons is hateful comments like, as Bernababe Belvedere said, discrimination, bigotry and hatred. If you would actually research what the Mormons do than you would know what we do. Anonymous said, "Your words are hate." You can't assume that he/she was Mormon. And if they are, than that one person is not the whole church. It should not reflect on the church as a whole.